Greetings in Christ, all!
This article is for both parish families…truth be told, it’s nice to only type one!
Okay, so this weekend, we are blessed to have a mission priest speaking to us about his work in South Africa. I thank you all for listening to the work of the Church all around the world: it’s so important. As Americans, it’s always good for us to remember that we are a little less than 5% of the world’s Catholic population and that the Church outside the US often looks very different from us in every sense of the word except for our common faith. Good stuff…
As for me, I am leaving this weekend for a retreat and I’m really excited about that. Outside of a stretch in 2011, I don’t ever remember being this wiped and I am very much looking forward to this time of rest and growth. I’ve got my spiritual reading lined up: I’m finally going to really get after Be Healed, a book I’ve started but held off on until I actually had time to read it and process it.
As usual, my best friend Fr. Geoff will be taking his retreat with me as well. We basically do this every year and it’s always nice.
I ask you to pray for me during this time away. I’ll miss you all and be sure to pray for you everyday.
I’ve got some extra room here, so I thought I’d share some quotes from St. Jean Vianney; one of my favorites. Enjoy…
We put pride into everything like salt. We like to see that our good works are known. If our virtues are seen, we are pleased; if our faults are perceived, we are sad. I remark that in a great many people; if one says anything to them, it disturbs them, it annoys them. The saints were not like that – they were vexed if their virtues were known, and pleased that their imperfections should be seen.
The Lord is more anxious to forgive our sins than a woman is to carry her baby out of a burning building.
Private prayer is like straw scattered here and there: If you set it on fire it makes a lot of little flames. But gather these straws into a bundle and light them, and you get a mighty fire, rising like a column into the sky; public prayer is like that.
My little children, your hearts, are small, but prayer stretches them and makes them capable of loving God. Through prayer we receive a foretaste of heaven and something of paradise comes down upon us. Prayer never leaves us without sweetness. It is honey that flows into the souls and makes all things sweet. When we pray properly, sorrows disappear like snow before the sun.
On the Way of the Cross, you see, my children, only the first step is painful. Our greatest cross is the fear of crosses. . . We have not the courage to carry our cross, and we are very much mistaken; for, whatever we do, the cross holds us tight – we cannot escape from it. What, then, have we to lose? Why not love our crosses, and make use of them to take us to heaven?
God bless you all!
fjk
